Photo by Amelia Read
There is a point after serious illness when the expectation of recovery can become deceptively simple. You are better, you are home, life can begin again. But what happens when the person who returns to that life is no longer quite the person who left it?
That uncertain space sits at the heart of Hartlepool artist
Celia Grace’s A Way Of Life, a new five-track EP written through severe illness, recovery and the difficult process of rebuilding afterwards. Having spent much of 2024 undergoing intensive chemotherapy for blood cancer at just 19, Celia has stripped back her previous indie-pop sound to create something quieter, more raw and deeply vulnerable.
The title track initially arrives almost cheerfully, an acoustic melody creating a deceptive lightness beneath lyrics carrying considerably more weight. “It’s hard to stay the same when you see things differently” captures something fundamental about the record; the distance illness can create between you and those whose lives have continued around you. Sounds recorded in the hospital where Celia was treated are woven into the sparse arrangement, bringing the environment that inspired the EP directly into the music. They never feel employed for dramatic effect, instead they become part of its lo-fi fabric, grounding the song in a reality that cannot, and perhaps shouldn’t, be entirely left behind.
Phone Operator introduces drums and guitar, but the vulnerability remains. “Confusion doesn’t cut it anymore” gives way to something that feels like grasping for whatever might remain when certainty has been upended. There are pleas, questions and moments of brutal language nestled inside Celia’s beautiful delivery, whilst understated harmonies and secondary vocals gradually broaden the sound. “Is there something to hang on to?” feels less like a lyric than a questioned plea suspended in mid-air.
By the time Salt begins, the EP has begun moving towards something different. “I’m not bitter, just learning how to live” is devastating in its simplicity because surviving is only part of this story. How do you return to ‘normal’ after looking into the possibility of death? What even constitutes normal afterwards, when the experience has fundamentally altered the person expected to return to it? A softer folk sound gives Salt a different texture at the EP’s midpoint, with additional voices gradually bringing something approaching hope. Not a ‘win’, perhaps, but movement towards something better. Celia is learning how to live rather than simply being alive, and there is a vital difference between the two.
That movement continues through So Do I. “Being honest with myself” and “seasons change and so do I” bring another kind of becoming into view. Written around Celia’s exploration and acceptance of her queerness after confronting her realised mortality, the track considers how difficult true authenticity can be, even in a world that likes to describe itself as accepting. There is liberation in no longer being able to keep something contained, but it remains quiet, gentle and tentative, the echoed harmonies gradually suggesting a chorus of voices gathering around her.
And then comes the final track, In The End. More upbeat instrumentally, initially disguising what may be the EP’s most haunting song. Written and rewritten across a year, its origins lie in a terrifying time during which Celia came close to death. Against that knowledge, “losing my grip” holds an entirely different weight. Nature appears within the imagery, but it is “heaven is my childhood bedroom” that stops everything. Faced with the enormity of what might come after life, Celia imagines something extraordinarily small, protective and familiar; safety, warmth, home. There is no sweeping cinematic resolution, instead, the track ends abruptly, fragments and echoes of “I just…” left hanging. It feels exhausted, unresolved and hauntingly appropriate.
Celia Grace’s A Way Of Life doesn’t offer an easy narrative around serious illness being endured, conquered and then neatly and conveniently left behind. Across these five songs, she moves through change, fear, loss, acceptance and becoming, but never pretends that recovery means reverting back. Musically, her restraint is perfect; sparse arrangements leave room around Celia’s voice and words, while harmonies, field recordings and gradually shifting instrumentation add depth without smothering the vulnerability or poignant observations at the centre. The melodies can be unexpectedly warm, even buoyant, creating a striking contrast with lyrics born from experiences that are anything but.
Perhaps the most affecting thing about A Way Of Life is that Celia doesn’t emerge demanding to be seen as fearless or unchanged or reverting to the life and self she understood. These songs document what happened when she began picking through what remained.
“I’m not bitter, just learning how to live.” That might be the closest A Way Of Life comes to answering its own question; not a return to the old ‘norm’, not a triumphant, fanfare ending, but the tentative construction of a new one in whatever form that is to take.
Celia Grace’s new EP ‘A New Way of Life’ is out now, and she is playing live gigs on the 29th of September at The Cumberland Arms, Newcastle, supporting Rail Replacement Bus Service, the 3rd of October at Twisterella Festival, and headlines on the 6th of November at the Green Rooms in Stockton.
